Las Vegas is famous for its high-profile boxing venues, and we expect to see some bloody battles at CES 2015 between the big four cell carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The cell service business has gotten viciously competitive of late, and with the pool of new customers drying up faster than Lake Mead, the carriers won’t be pulling any punches as they lower data rates, buyout contracts, and wave fees to steal each other’s customers.
T-Mobile has already thrown out a pre-show challenge, offering new and old customers alike a “gift” bucket of 10 gigabytes (GB) of data per phone line, plus the ability to roll over unused data into the following months (you have up to a year to use up each month’s rolled-over data). This rollover plan is an obvious poke at AT&T, which has allowed prepaid cell customers to bank unused voice minutes since time immemorial. T-Mobile’s data bonus also comes on the heels of recent data-doubling promotions from Sprint and AT&T, whose offers expired 30 days after being announced.
Of course, the drama between rounds should be equally compelling. At last year’s CES, the theatrically inclined CEO John Legere put on quite a show as he was ejected from AT&T’s party, while this month he regaled us with the T-Mobile version of “The Night Before Christmas.")
Check out our coverage of trends in smart phones, and advice on how to shop for a new plan.
We’ll keep you posted on the latest carrier developments from CES and have lots of tips ready to help you shop for a new phone and new phone plan. Promotions and occasional rate changes aside, the structure of the Big Four’s plans hasn’t changed much in the past year. Here’s how they basically work:
Verizon and AT&T
Both of these carriers have reasonably-priced data rates, though they charge a criminally high monthly access fee of $40 per phone if you’re a contract subscriber or if you bring your own phone. But both carriers reduce the access fees if you buy the phone(s) through either Verizon's Edge or AT&T's Next programs (no money down and interest free). The good news is that the access fees remain at their lower rates even after you’ve paid off the phones—a good deal given that today’s phones are likely to function quite well beyond the two or so years it will take to pay them off.
The access fee per phone on Verizon Edge is $25 per phone when you purchase 4 gigabytes (GB) or less, and $15 per phone when you purchase 10GB or more. On AT&T Next programs, the access fees are $20 per phone for 8GB or less, and $15 per phone on 10GB of data.